VISTAGY, Inc., developer of computer-aided-design (CAD) integrated software for the design and manufacture of composite parts, today released details of Kawasaki Heavy Industries Aerospace Company (KHI) in Kakamigahara City, Japan, purchase of its FiberSIM 5.0 software. KHI is using FiberSIM to design and manufacture several fuselage sections of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner as well as smaller parts for the aircraft. Fischer Advanced Composite Components (FACC) AG, based in Ried/Innkreis, Austria is using the new Advanced Composite Engineering Environment (ACEE) in FiberSIM to design and manufacture composite winglets for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

“FiberSIM’s specialized functionality could help to drastically reduce the time and risk involved in both designing and manufacturing the Boeing 787, and is a good fit with the product development processes defined by both KHI and Boeing,” says Masahiko Yokota, Senior Staff Officer, Space Systems & Commercial Aircraft Project Engineering Department for KHI Aerospace Company.

“KHI worked closely with us over the last twelve months to develop new, innovative capabilities in FiberSIM 5.0,” says Steven C. Luby, president and CEO of VISTAGY. “Powerful new features such as FiberSIM’s grid-based design methodology enable KHI engineers to work more quickly and reliably with large-scale aerostructures such as the Boeing 787 fuselage sections.”

KHI Aerospace Company is the leading producer of aerospace composite parts in Japan. The company designs and manufactures components for Boeing, Airbus, Embraer, and for the Japanese CX/PX cargo and maritime patrol planes. Because the Boeing 787 has the largest all-composite fuselage ever created, designing and manufacturing the fuselage sections present very unique and complex challenges. KHI is using the Advanced Composite Engineering Environment and other FiberSIM tools throughout their entire composite design and manufacturing process to overcome these challenges. In particular, KHI plans to use FiberSIM to automatically generate the data needed by fibre placement and tape laying machines used for manufacturing the Boeing 787 fuselage sections.

“In the past, FACC has successfully used FiberSIM tools solely for manufacturing,” says Roland Zeilinger, Head of Design at FACC Vienna. “As part of our overall strategy of streamlining the product development process, we will make FiberSIM an essential part of design, as well.”

FACC has longstanding expertise in manufacturing composite parts for aircraft. The company previously used FiberSIM to generate ply lay-up data for automated cutting machines and laser pattern projection equipment to manufacture components for the wings of the Airbus A380. The product development path for those components was complex and involved several data translations between multiple engineering software tools. The upgrade to FiberSIM 5.0 is part of a broader effort to make digital design as integrated and efficient as possible.

FACC intends to implement the full range of FiberSIM’s functionality, from preliminary design to manufacturing, including the following new tools in the ACEE: Zone-based design for defining laminate specifications and requirements Dynamic generation of zone transitions and ply boundaries Generation of variable offset surfaces Smart darting and splicing